Thursday, January 22, 2009

Here we go. As promised, here's my start on a Steve Avery player collection. I have a whopping six, count 'em... six card! There may be a few more here and there. But as I've said many times, my collection ends just before the vast proliferation of sets and variations, for example I have one of just two Avery cards from 1989, and there were just eight different Steve Avery cards in 1990 spread across all brands.

This is going to be a challenge, but one I'm looking forward to.

Here they are:

1989 Topps #784

1990 Donruss #39 - This was my first Steve Avery card. I actually bought this one in a card shop in 1990 for about $5. It's not perfect, but the white line through the M in his middle name on scan of the back is from the scanner, not the card.

1991 Donruss #187

1992 Score #797 - Oh the days before high quality digital manipulation. You can clearly see where the photo was "cut" using some software program. Look at the outlining of his pitching hand and then at his right sleeve just above the wrist. Then look at his hat on the back of the card. I never noticed this until I scanned it, and thought at first that it was the scanner, but no.

Read the back of the card. There's a wee lil typo there, or poor fact checking, or something. The last sentences reads: "The Pirates won 1-0." No, they didn't. The Braves won game two 1-0.

Way to go Score, high quality product ya got there... I kid, I kid, I actually like 1992 Score.

1994 Fleer Ultra #147 - Wow, that gold foil really doesn't like to scan, does it? Also pardon the dust and cat hair on the scan of the front... I love '94 Ultra, one of my all time favorite sets. I'm thinking about trying to find a box or two of it and see if I can't put together a set... it's a big one though.

2000 Topps #11 - Again, pardon the cat hair and dust. This is my only Steve Avery card not in a Braves uniform.

I'm thinking about tackling this thing in order of release, but we'll see how long that lasts. If I do it that way, the first card would be (not counting any little oddball releases, I'll deal with them at the end) 1989 Bowman.

Looking at ebay a lot of his cards go for no more than $1.50, so I don't see this being the most difficult undertaking of my life.

Of course I know it's not worth anything. It was worth the $5 I paid for it back in 1990. I don't care about book value, I care about the memories of a player that I followed closely for 15 years or more.